Nonfiction November Week 3: Book Pairings

It’s week 3 of Nonfiction November and I’m just about done with my second nonfic read for the month which I should be reviewing soon. Meanwhile, here’s my post for this week’s prompt, Book Pairings: fiction and nonfiction titles that ‘go’ together, perhaps because of the subject, the people written about or any other way. This week’s host is Liz at Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home, and she encourages us to be creative in our pairings. Coming up with pairings ended up more challenging for me than I’d initially thought and I’m sure I’ve missed various obvious ones on my shelves. The ones I’ve come up with are cases where I’ve read one half of the equation but have the other still to go; one pair, a quartet, and one looser pair!

Mary Anning

The first pair is in fact one I had first come across in a joint review of the two books (so not one I can claim to have put together) but one which had led me to want to read both books, preferably together but I didn’t manage to track down a copy of the nonfic at the time so I went ahead and read the fictional account anyway. Both focus on the ‘fossil hunter’ Mary Anning, the inspiration behind the tongue twister she sells sea shells on the sea shore. The fiction part of this pair which I’ve read is Remarkable Creatures (2009) by Tracy Chevalier, and explores the friendship between Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpott, a woman who comes from a different social background to Anning (she is reasonably wealthy and a spinster) but is equally interested in fossils. The book gives both women distinctive voices and explores their lives and struggles, personal and those to get their work (particularly Mary’s ) the recognition it deserves. The second is The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Fossils and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World (2009) by Shelley Emling chronicles Anning’s remarkable life and the significant contributions she made to paleontology.

Jahangir

This set of books, on the fourth Mughal Emperor Jahangir, is a quartet rather than a pair, comprising two books of fiction which I have read and two nonfiction which are on my TBR. The Twentieth Wife (2002) by Indu Sunderesan is a book I discovered after watching an excellent TV adaptation in Hindi of this (Siyasat), and while the book broadly traces the love story of Emperor Jahangir and Mehrunissa/Noorjehan, who became his twentieth wife, it is also a story of the battle for the Mughal throne, court politics, and much else. The second of the fictional accounts of Jahangir’s reign that I read was The Tainted Throne (2012) by a husband-wife team, Diana and Michael Preston who write as Alex Rutherford, which also traces how Noorjehan soon makes herself the de facto ruler of the Kingdom.

An obvious nonfiction book to pair these with is Jahangir’s own memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, which provide an account of his reign and also his reflections on art, politics, and culture among others. The fact that these are a first hand account (no doubt of Jahangir as he wished to present himself) has made me want to read them, though they have been waiting on my TBR a long time. The second of the nonfics that I want to read on him is a more recent publication Jahangir: An Intimate Portrait of a Mughal Emperor (2018) by Parvati Sharma, which explores how Jahangir’s reputation as weak and an alcoholic is belied by his ambition and strength shown throughout his life be it in his rebellion against his father or stamping out that by one of his sons. He is also the writer of ‘one of the most perceptive and entertaining imperial memoirs of all time’.

Hypatia

This one’s an extra, and a looser pair than the other two, and one where both books are from my TBR though here I am likely to get to the nonfic part sooner (next week, I hope). Hypatia (d. 415AD) was a philosopher and mathematician who lived in Alexandria and was renowned in her life time as a teacher and counsellor. While beloved and turned to for advice by many, she suffered a tragic end, murdered by a mob. Hypatia (1848) by Charles Kingsley is a fictional account of her life. The nonfiction part of this pairing is A History of Women in Mathematics (2023) by Dale Debakcsy, which tells the story of several remarkable women who have contributed to mathematics over the ages, in a world that was determined to keep them out. Among these is Hypatia, the subject of chapter 2 of the book.

So those are my pairs and a quartet. Have you read any of these or do you want to? What pairs did you come up with?